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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Lasker:

Yes.

Among the projects which had been supported by the Foundation or by our own personal funds were research projects in the field of cancer, mental illness, heart diseases and arteriosclerosis and a small contribution in the field of tuberculosis. In addition to our efforts in connection with the reorganization of the American Cancer Society and our effort to get Federal appropriations for the National Cancer Institute, Albert and I made other contributions toward cancer research support in various ways, and here is how it came about.

This section should be entitled additional efforts in the field of cancer research. Dr. C. P. Rhoads of Memorial Hospital wrote a pamphlet which I've already spoken about and which I read in about 1943 and which influenced me profoundly in connection with cancer research. I was determined to meet him and did meet him in the fall of '43 when he was still in the Army but returning to Memorial Hospital from time to time. He was convinced then that a chemical cure or cures could be found for cancer. He felt that money for organization and testing of chemical compounds and hormones of various kinds would eventually bring the answer. He was the only doctor that I knew or had known who had such a determined, far-sighted vision of what areas should be approached in connection with the attack on this disease, and had a broad view of an attack. I'm not comparing him with Dr. Sidney Farber, whom I later got to know, in the late '40s and early '50s, and Farber's point of view has really become more statesmanlike than Rhoads's ever was because Rhoads tended to feel that if he had





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